Getting Cohen

​Just after hearing the sad news of Leonard Cohen’s death I realised I could still recite most of First We Take Manhattan. This is a song I was quite obsessed with as a teenager, when it had just come out. Also I’m Your Man. Luckily I had parents who had bought the album – it was certainly not marketed to my age group. I was fascinated by this dark, brooding, powerful character who could be manly and intellectual and threatening and tender; who perceived the injustices in the world and the tension between love and action. Who knew the New World Order emerging from the fall of the Berlin Wall was rotten inside and that, one day, we would have to fight. I did not understand then the reasons for my fascination. Cohen had lived more than me and knew how to express it. I’ve lived a bit now and at long last know what he meant.